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RE: Patent license

2004-08-24 12:22:42
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Seth Goodman wrote:

In the end, many, many patents are granted that do not, IMO and in my
specific area of expertise, pass the tests of obviousness and being
sufficiently different from prior art.  I have seen many patents granted
in my area where the technology claimed has been used in commercial
products of other companies for years, which in our system constitutes
public disclosure.  A lot of these patents would probably not survive
legal challenge, but the cost of bringing such challenge is in excess of
USD$500K and approaching USD$1M.  The result is that unless you are
talking about corporate behemoth vs. corporate behemoth (as in Rodan vs.
Godzilla), baseless patents are allowed to stand because no one has the
resources to challenge them.  It goes without saying that if Microsoft
is granted a patent, whether or not it has any merit, and they see that
patent as important to their intellectual property portfolio, you better
have nearly unlimited resources if you care to challenge it.

Support http://pubpat.org

-- 
              Stuart D. Gathman <stuart(_at_)bmsi(_dot_)com>
    Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.


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